Chug's Tale.

Chug's Tale: From Law to Outlaw, By Chug Manoc.

Introduction:

Hey, I'm Chug. Those amongst you with perception may have figured that if I'm writing this, I gotta still be alive out there somewhere. Well, I am and I ain't. Sorry for being cryptic but maybe you'll work out why by the end. Til then, let me tell you all about myself.

I was born in Mexico, to a Norwegian father and Mexican mother. I was going to be a musician, but a brush with the law (hey, musicians need alchohol and that warehouse looked unguarded) sent me to military academy, and from there I progressed into the OffWorld Forces. With the infinity of Space in front of me, a screaming crowd didn't seem important anymore.

Within four years I was a pilot, and patrolled Earth's borders with the OffWorld Police. After a year and a half I was given promotion to the OffWorld Space Corps, where my duties involved deep-space reconnaissance and smuggler intercepts. I call it the OffWorld Space Corps, but there were five changes of identity and management while I was there, and many more since; whatever it is called, it's the Armies of the Allied Earth nations.

I flew for the AAE for seven years in total. Seven was just about enough.


I'd joined because I'd had to, and got myself interested enough to get my ass into space, but the glamour faded pretty quick. When I saw cargoes impounded but not recorded, and decisions made to avoid one fleet and search another for reasons I knew to be corrupt, I began to get the idea to leave. The pay wasn't enough to save and make a go of it. The cheapest ship out there, planet-to-planet capable, was still more than I earned in ten years. Home was out; without Ma and Pa alive Lazaro Cardenas held little attraction. So the plan must be to steal away, with ship and crew, and find some rock to sit on.

Far from Earth lay an opaque expanse of space; an area so clouded with gas and debris that all attempts to see what was beyond it had failed. It seemed the best place to go.

The crew did me proud: they needed little convincing. Young, bright and for the most part capable, they too found fault in the administration, and the demeaning and criminal tasks we were ordered to perform. That was the problem with it; by the management sanctioning criminal activity, they were allowing us to consider other crimes more beneficial to our ends. They had made us the thieves we became. (That's what I said in court.... didn't work. More of that later)

So it was that on a routine mission to the far orbits beyond Pluto, we stole away into the black. Two years of running got us to a place the locals called Zebu. That place could make a story of it's own. Seemed we got there as a civilisation was on the starting grids. The Molisks were diminiutive little fellas, and they were friendly from the start, and came across pretty educated on the translators. They'd had their homeworld attacked and were building afresh. With the veil of galactic crap between us and Earth, it seemed a good place to lay low, so we pitched in, giving our technology and tools to their efforts, as well as our labour. Our generosity wasn't entirely for free though, as the food and drink supplied by our hosts was recieved in fine style.

This was our home for many years. We built a settlement for our families, and with the Molisks, worked towards the development of the land and the sourcing of energy.

Then Earth started to clear the opaque expanse......

Unsettled

We'd been on Zebu for seventeen years, and we'd grown to like it there. We had the freedom to do as we wanted. Whatever areas the Molisks avoided, we followed suit. There was enough space to go around. Some of the crew were hunters before they joined, and encouraged the rest to embrace the rich opportunities on offer. We never went short of food.

The work we were doing for the Molisks was going well. We had developed a Mining system using combined technologies that proved to be highly efficient in the finding and extracting of rare metals. There had been a significant find of platinum which had led to it's consideration for use in the energy collection project. It was one of the best conductors of Integral energy available, and to find so much of it seemed too good to be true.

It was therefore a bad day all round when the sensors started getting all-too-familiar signals through the dissappearing cloud. The Molisks put the time of total clearance at around two hundred years, but I had come from the other side, I knew the figures involved, and reckoned to have a good idea of how they were doing it. I put it at less than thirty years before we had to go. They would not be clearing the opaque expanse with this planet in mind, but the sight of it through their long-range scanners would surely prompt them to launch an immediate inspection. There were very few life-supporting planets "on the list" at that time.

So that was it. We were not to live and die here. We were to run, and this was to happen as we approached old age. It was not the best of prospects, and shattered the idyll we had wrought. We then made the decision that our time on Zebu should not be spent waiting for the sirens, it should be time spent well. We would let the days pass, but with a struggle.

The first real sign that our lives would not be affected by what lay in store came with the marriage of two of the crew. Crewman Pryor and Navigator Calcott were long known to have bonded, and it made us all feel a little cosier to see their happiness celebrated. They planned to build a settlement in the north and raise a family. Can't deny it left me a bit cold at the time; the last girl I loved was a long way behind me.

For two years or so we continued building, extending the settlements we had started, getting power supplies across the often difficult terrain. We had heard much of the dangerous second continent, and when our help was no longer necessary we looked to exploring there, as an outlet for our thoughts if nothing else.

Abroad

Taking the Emergency Shuttle from the Gunboat, Myself and a crew of three set out for Amethera. We crossed a vast ocean, and during the flight saw a great movement in the water. On inspection this revealed itself to be several large water-borne beasts in some sort of fight or ritual. They were much greater in size than the ten-metre shuttle we flew, and appeared able to leap clear of the water to incredible heights, their gnashing rows of needle-like teeth shining as a light passed through them from within. There seemed no good reason to get any closer; we took several pictures of these aquatic dragons and carried on to our destination.

We landed on the shore of an island, having sighted more coastlines to the north-east and south-east. We were immediately besieged in the shuttle by an aggressive herd of Walrus-like creatures that we later found to be called Mermoths. Once the Shuttle's guns had cleared them, we set about researching the land. We could map the place, collect information pertinent to mining, and make some kind of record of what was here.

This went to plan; we travelled to the mainland, and then went north along the coast. Much was learned of soil and rock types; it seemed that Amethera was different enough in composition to the first continent to hold the possibility of more useful or plentiful resources.

We encountered many new creatures, and of these the Falxangius proved the toughest to defeat. Fortunately, these colossus are not predators as such, and can be avoided quite easily. More of an issue were the Neconu, which I would happily see extinct had I the power. These lightning fast relentless terrors had wounded many of our party in an early encounter with a nest; we had since become adept at spotting them from a distance, and letting the snipers take them.

Our repeated attempts to train the horse-like Equus failed miserably; it would take greater men than us to master these huge beasts.

We travelled further north, having no wish to encounter the Thorifoids; from what the Molisks had told us it seemed best. Whether they were scaring us off for the sake of their old allies was one thing, but furious blue mutants with magic powers never came too high up my "shake hands with" list.

We had our caution rewarded; had we gone eastwards as ambassadors, we would never have found the hole.

The Hole

It was a surprising find, by any reckoning. In the far north, we were hacking through a close and tangled forest when we almost fell into it. There was no warning at all, no sign that through the next bush, an apparently bottomless pit, almost perfectly round and about eighty metres across, was waiting, it's black and open mouth suggesting incredible depths. On closer inspection of this phenonemon, we were able to uncover what appeared to be ancient paths, that led to the lip and spiralled downwards, so thin as to make one foot lead another in line; we could not be sure what made them.

What we found at the bottom, after more than three thousand steps and a lot of steep, crumbling pathway, made us even more unsure.

We had descended into the hole for hours. To look upwards was akin to seeing an ever-shrinking moon in the night sky. All kinds of thoughts went through my mind as we edged ever further around the precarious path. The hole itself was precisely horizontal, and the sides were smooth for the most part. The pathway we trod that spiralled around the wall was obviously constructed, so I had to concieve that this vast pit had been dug somehow. I considered it may have been a natural feature to begin with, and then worked on to achieve an end, but I could see no clear method to it's construction. We had descended over two thousand metres, with the daylight a distant star above us, when we came to a halt. As is the case with any huge hole left open for long periods of time, debris from activity above, be it weather, war or fly-tipping, had accumulated in the bottom. We saw boughs of trees both recent and ancient, amongst smashed and broken plants struggling to gain a new, crippled foothold in the dimly lit oubliette they'd been unlucky enough to be blown into.
We saw the detritus of decades was here; perhaps centuries. Not knowing of it's depth, we nonetheless set out to clear it. After a brief attempt to clear downwards and reach the bottom, we saw no alternative but to send two of the crew back to the shuttle, in order to operate the winch. We did not have the fuel to fly down and load the shuttle over and over; the job would have to be done the slow way. Volksen and Ratman went back up the pathway after a rest. I took Elloran, the strongest of our expedition team, and started to throw the larger boughs into rough stacks ready for the winch. We worked away for a couple of hours; we could assume the going would be slower for Volksen and Ratman on the way up. It was then a branch was lifted that revealed something else.
Elloran found it, and called me over excitedly. It was a gold-coloured, rounded object. A period of concerted scrabbling uncovered enough to reveal it was a much bigger object than it seemed; from a rounded, smooth tip, it tapered outwards and downwards beyond where we could see. It was made of a smooth, hard metal, and scratching at it with a knife only served to dull the blade. It was not gold, anyway; the colouring had the look of an electro-plated finish. We were agog, but had no option but to await the winch being lowered, then get to work on the long and laborious process of raising all the debris from the hole, in nets or wrapped in chains.
It was to take days. Elloran elected to stay below until the job was done, taking meals lowered from the shuttle, while I took regular breaks in the fresh air every evening, finding the going much quicker on the end of the winch cable. I admired his capacity for hard work, but at the same time was never one for fooling myself that I didn't need a rest.
We found a gantry of a fashion, that ran down the side of the shaft, and by means of outstretched metal sections held the object upright. It was becoming more and more clear that it was some kind of rocket. The metal in the gantry was nothing familiar; and the construction, although using similar methods to those we knew, was somehow not human, almost obviously so. There were bolts for example, as we would use in such a situation, but these had heads in the shape of animals and strange symbols, each one different. There were thousands, possibly tens of thousands in the whole thing, so I could only think there must either be a corresponding spanner for each different shape or one remarkable spanner that can fit any shape.
Work continued for six long days, after which we found doorways starting to appear behind the walled-up grime of centuries past. The rocket gave no clues as to it's purpose, merely ceasing to taper and remaining featureless and cylindrical towards the floor. Now we could see an end, and we found new energy. Going through the night, in the morning of the seventh day we got to the bottom, despite the blow to our spirits that the doors had given us; they were far taller than we expected, at over five metres tall. The clearing of the base of the rocket at least confirmed to us a certain degree of purpose by revealing the multiple exhausts of a space-going vessel. This was enough to stop Ratman taunting us that we were slaving away to unearth a grain silo.

The doorways led in four directions, and were curved to the same shape as the round wall of the hole. Looking up, with the shadow of the rocket looming, the thought struck me that it might not be a rocket at all. There was a very good chance, all things considered, that we were stood, grimy and exhausted, in the depths of a gigantic missile silo.
We slept on it; the doors could wait for our vigour to return. As easily as an ice-cream falling from a carelessly tilted cone, I fell asleep like I was landing a parachute and remained there for nine hours. I awoke before Elloran, who had done the work of five men, and slept the sleep of ten. Stretching and clearing my eyes with a muddy finger, I looked upon the doors again. Kicking Elloran awake, I crossed to the nearest. It seemed pretty straight-forward; from the look of it it rose into the frame when the handle was moved downwards. The handle was huge, and took the two of us to budge it; it had been under a pile of rubbish for unknown ages. With a roar and a stink of foul air, the door sucked backward a fraction before rising quickly into the roof, powered by long-dormant cells and creaking and popping with the neglect of generations. Inside was dark, even with a flashlight. Finding a wall, we traced along into the room, until a movement sensor crackled; this caused the lighting of the whole room, part by part; and what a sight it was.

Giants and Men

The lights came on and our blinking eyes gazed around us. The room was bigger than we imagined. It wasn't just bigger in size, but in scale. It was obviously a kind of control centre; there were chairs, desks and terminals. What made it different was the dimensions the place had been built to. The seats of the chairs were at eye level. The desk was nearly three metres high.
The odd thing was that again, apart from the fine details, this did not seem an alien construction; the layout and basic ergonomics worked to serve human forms, albeit very large ones. There were three seats, and seven screens arrayed above the sweeping desk, which loomed above us like an inner-city highway. With help both from Elloran and the conveniently sticky walls, I was able to clamber up onto the control desk. What faced me was bewildering; any labelling of the outsize controls was in as bizarre a language as I could imagine. Not a single symbol of this text seemed to repeat itself anywhere else, giving scant hope at translation into any familiar tongue.
Elloran searched the floor as I perused the desk. Finding and activating a power circuit, we got the desk to light up a little, and a few deft button presses saw the whole board come to life. However, after several minutes scrutinizing the same indecipherable text as on the controls, we gave up looking at the screens.
Elloran had scraped at the slime on the wall and found the outline of a doorway. Working together, we traced the join up and around, and dug at where the handle should have been, finding it easily. Wedging a metal plate under the latch, we pulled with all our might, and with the noise of a spoon coming out of a trifle, the door opened.
I recognised the smell instantly. This was a tomb, and from looking at it, not an intentional one. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, lifted softly by the green glow from the main room, we made them out, and knew what they were. They were the Tremen.
The Tremen were a race we had been taught of at school; space-dwelling giants, with great scientific minds. They had not visited Earth more than a dozen times, and not for many years; their story had long passed into legend. The lives of the Tremen people were devoted to research, and they travelled the universe documenting, collecting and analysing all they came across. This then had been a research centre; and the three bare, twisted skeletons, with shin-bones two-metres tall and horned skulls the size of escape pods, had been the researchers. It was then I began to wonder how they came to all die in the same room. They were arranged on the floor as if reaching for the air-vents in the far wall; I imagined they had somehow been sealed in and were attempting to get a supply of fresh air before they were suffocated. Elloran said "Shame," and I could think of nothing better to add. We radioed the information to Volksen in the Shuttle and pushed the door closed.
Saddened by the sight, we turned our attentions to the rocket. Could it be that this held their findings, from this and other worlds? Begging the pardon of the previous owners, we set about gaining entry to the apparently seamless craft. Elloran found a number of slime-encrusted levers and valves, which seemed to serve only the ventilation and heating system of the chamber. There was nothing for it but to climb back on the desk and start pressing buttons. I pulled myself up on my elbows, then my knees, Elloran being busy with a large steel post and the resilient shell of the rocket. Steadying myself, I gazed at the desk. I gazed then at the roof, the walls, and the floor, and then each way, towards the rocket and towards the room. That's when my heart actually stopped. I know this because it had happened before, and has since; I'm a fighter pilot on my better days and great shocks provoke great reactions. What made it stop on this occasion was the slime, or more precisely the nature of it. From my vantage point I could see it; like a satellite photo of a muddy river outwash, the slime came from the tomb, and through the Control Centre, sweeping in fractal arcs around and up the walls, criss-crossing at the highest point of the ceiling. The trail swept out into the base of the shaft, and I could see the stain fade as it rose up the sheer wall. Leaping from the desk with all the pace I could muster, I yelled to Elloran, landed with a heavy thump, and winded, ran for the narrow path to the surface. Elloran, having dropped his makeshift tool and doing his best to match my headlong panic up the spiral, gasped out a need to know what we were running from.
"Screamchasers" I told him. Then he overtook me.

Fear and Loathing

Screamchasers were also something we learned of in school; in darker histories indeed. These rapacious swarming creatures were known to have destroyed entire civilisations. It is said the true face of fear is not worn by those meeting Screamchasers; it is worn by those who have met them before. Elloran had, and this accounted for his ten-metre lead on me as we wound up and out of the shaft on the precarious path.

Behind me, I heard them. It started as a whistle, like an ancient kettle coming to boil. I'd seen footage of Screamchasers, and I knew what would come next; the amplification and rising in pitch of their prey-seeking sonar, until a herd of steam engines would seem to be approaching. We rose ever higher, willing our legs to keep pushing down despite the heaviness of the muscles. I lost the fight to stop myself looking down, and that's when I saw them; as terrible a sight as there ever was.
Screamchasers' other name is Ullugi. They are a species of insectoid nature, which have their fair share of peculiarities; the swarm usually consists of many different sizes of Ullugi, with the heavier, cat-sized beetles running at the base of the "river", the rat-sized ones spilling around on the "surface" and the smallest, no bigger than white mice, riding the heated air above. There the similarities to Cats, Rats and Mice end; these remorseless killers were in a different league altogether. They all drooled a thick slime, which coated all they passed over and aided the progess of the swarm. It was this that I'd seen from the giant's desk; the research party had not been trying to get to the air vent for fresh air. They had been trying to block it. Ullugi sleep underground for many years in a cocoon stage. It was likely they were roused by the construction of the research station; it would have been several years after that that the swarm had grown hungry enough to see what caused their awakening. Then the Tremen would not have stood a chance. Few weapons can fight a million foes at once.
It was with these thoughts in mind I looked at the cloud appear; the smaller Ullugi were racing ahead, the smell of fresh meat on their crazed minds. The noise had risen to a deafening degree; I heard Elloran snort "bastards!" from the path above me; he was now a half-circuit of the path ahead and still suffering from the high-pitched cry of the swarm below. I sent some more energy to my legs and hastened my ascent, ignoring the signals that told me such acceleration was unavailable. I had ran for the path for a reason; the stain of slime faded at a certain height, and by now Elloran had reached it.
He stopped to look at our pursuers, at the same time grabbing for the radio, spitting the words "Screamers! Get ready to leave!" to Volksen and Ratman in the shuttle above. Almost catching up with him, I gestured for him to keep running, and we matched each other's speed around the path, conscious of the gap between us and the swarm, not growing nor shrinking. Would we keep our lead? Would our legs make us proud of them or send us to a quick, horrible death, stripped to the bone like the Tremen?
It was not to happen that way. Already I could see from my frantic glances downwards that the problem for the Ullugi was the nature of the shaft. They could only climb vertically for a cerain distance, and although they swarmed up and around the path, it proved too narrow for the entire swarm to take the initiative. Instead, the seething maelstrom of unhinged predation rushed around the bottom of the shaft, while a stream of determined 'chasers continued their pursuit of us. We could see the top now, clearly enough to see Ratman's silhouette, close enough to work out what he was holding, and in enough time to hug the wall as the curling arc of the flamethrower licked down past us and onto the top of the swarm. Instantly there was a fizzing and crackling as the creatures started to perish and explode, their caustic insides erupting through their burning shells. We saw the swarm visibly recoil as if one huge, smoking serpent, and the trail coming around the path recede. The flames blasted down for thirty seconds or so; Ratman had been on the mission with Elloran to JiJendra where the Screamchasers had wiped out a quarter of the allied force. That we escaped the flames would not have been Ratman's priority, and indeed, had this been a military mission and not the wanderings of deserters, it would still not have counted against Ratman to incinerate us along with the Ullugi, such was their threat to life. The rule of engagement where Screamchasers are concerned is to eradicate them at all cost.
By the time we reached the top, Volksen and Ratman had gathered up all the explosives they could find from the shuttle; there were short-range warheads, hand-held artillery shells and even mining charges, as well as several fuel containers. The plan was clear, to send a world of crap down the shaft and kill off the swarm.
It went against the grain but I had to stop them; we did not know the extent of the swarm, or that what we could send down would kill all of them. The shaft itself was huge, and extremely deep; I reasoned that had the Ullugi been able to get to the surface then by now they would have done so. Lone Ullugi do not exist; they would only travel with the swarm, and so the narrow, coiled path would create a convenient barrier to any terranean intentions. We had seen only the head of the swarm, and with what we had could not hope to clear the chambers, especially as several doors remained unopened.
The decision was made to return with the full crew, and sufficient equipment and materials to construct a cover for the shaft. The Screamchasers needed food to live, and their last meal, although substantial, seemed to have been many decades before. We could only hope they starved behind the lid. At over eighty metres across, it was a large undertaking, but something we knew we could do.
Ratman and Elloran remained behind with four fuel cells and both flamethrowers, "just in case".

The Cover-Up

We returned with thirteen men, having left some behind for the benefit of the Molisks, who were hell-bent on getting their energy collection project off the ground. We brought the Gunboat, which although perilously short of fuel, which we could not hope to produce or acquire, had enough steam to get the job done. On board were sheets of steel, welding equipment and a selection of girders, spars and beams left over from the construction we had undertaken for the Molisks. The plan was to build the lid and position it over the hole with the winches on the gunboat.
We reached the location a little over thirty hours from leaving it, and found Ratman and Elloran at their posts, with the flame-throwers, but short two fuel cells; and Elloran was missing his boots. As both were alive, I thought it prudent to assume nothing of note had occurred in our time away.

The lid was built in a little more than a day, with no skimping allowed on either the bracing or welding; this was no decorative cover, but a shield that must last decades, or release the unspeakable swarm. It was only a matter of time before the Ullugi found their way up the path en masse. This could not be allowed to happen. We had opened a door that should have remained closed forever, and were making amends with our labours.
The Gunboat proved most effective as a crane, and with Volksen in the cockpit we saw the lid meet and seal the edges of the hole on the first attempt. Some time was taken in covering and reinforcing the lid with earth and rubble from the surrounding plateau; although high atop a granite range of mountains many hundreds of metres tall, we stood on a broad fertile platform, which planed off to every horizon, with jagged peaks rising defensively beyond. From the air it must have seemed to the Tremen to be the perfect landing spot, a natural castle. Little did they know what lurked thousands of metres below the ground. Some talk was had between the men over what had been lost; the rocket now sealed in the hole doubtless carried DNA and active samples of the creatures here and elsewhere. The Tremen themselves were known to use few weapons, but the Tremen WarBlade, which serves as a knife to it's owners but can be used by a larger human as a two-handed sword, was held in extremely high regard in military circles; many said it was among the best melee weapons ever made. It did the crew no good to realise that below them, under the impenetrable lid they had sweated to construct, lay at least three Tremen WarBlades, each one worth more than the GunBoat on the open market. It took mentioning out-loud to Elloran that he might want to get new boots to stop the resentful murmurs. They couldn't help but notice how his ragged feet bled from many recent openings, and they remembered what the lid was for.

We gathered the crew and continued our exploration on foot. It was thought best to leave as much fuel in the Gunboat as possible, should we ever need to effect an escape. I hadn't the heart to let on what I knew; that the nearest planet that supported life was five times further away than the Gunboat would carry us. It was within the range of the Deep Space escape shuttle though; if we ran we would do so by bus rather than tank.
Carrying on to the far northern tip of the continent, we headed south east, down the eastern shore, where the terrain was rocky and lined with crevasses. We met massively tall spider-like creatures we later learned to be Caperons, and after a short engagement decided they were something to avoid. We were aware of being watched; it seemed the Thorifoids had no problem with us being on "their" continent, but chose to keep themselves informed of our movements.
A little while after starting out on the third day of marching, we came to what seemed to be an ancient city, although of what race we could not be sure. The remains of great buildings lay in a maze of streets, squares and courtyards, all covered in enveloping green-grey moss. The walls were all made from the stone natural to the area, and the design too simple to offer clues about the builders. Most of the buildings had no roof, and the few that did only just qualified, having no more than a few rotten beams and tangled clumps of thatch and bindweed gracing their eaves.
We marvelled at the place; it was out of keeping with anything we'd seen so far. It was too small to be the work of the Tremen; their cities make one feel like a mouse. It lacked the tribality of the Thorifoid's temples and edifices, and they were known to reside in homes of wood and hide. We disregarded the other races on Zebu; Argonauts lived in caves and the Feffoids had never been here, as far as we had been told. From our brief time in Port Atlantis, we saw little to suggest that this city was from the same hands.
The thorough inspection of the whole city took four days; without the aggression of ransackers it was still possible to come out ahead; we unearthed many items and resources from under the thick carpet of moss. Amongst these were Earthers, a device used by the race who left the city for us; by connecting you to the ground beneath your feet, they rendered the carrier near-invincible to those rare adversaries that employ electric attacks. Also found were several cases of drugs, which served to suggest a military aspect to the previous inhabitants; analysis showed most of them to be a compound used primarily by snipers to calm the muscles and steady their aim. The city was no Fort though; the only sign of defensive structures were two empty gun emplacements to the south, which were covered in a glassy slick of metal. It took a long walk down the eastern coast and the loss of my eyebrows to realise that the molten metal atop the emplacements was the remains of two mighty artillery pieces. It was also around this time I stopped thinking dragons were myths.

Fire in the Sky

We'd left the city that morning, and found the going easy. The land was bare. There was evidence of fires; blackened patches of ground grew in number, linking into one soot-covered plain of charcoal tree stumps and scant new growth. We marched across a sea of black dunes as high as mountains, our feet doing three steps for every two travelled. The noise we heard from far away caused us to move more subtly, and the final dune was crested on our bellies. As our faces rose above the summit they were lit by a fire I had never dreamed I would see; the fire from a dragon's mouth, searing, cartwheeling fire, filling the natural bowl in the dunes and licking at our position enough to kick us all back a step. Only when it died did we see it.

I had known for years that most beasts of myth had some base in fact. Angels had returned to Earth some years ago; and with the wisdom of evolution we were able to see the Ciryssyan people for the travellers they were, instead of taking their wings and the phosphorescent aura that surrounded them as a sign of divinity. That their race was peaceful and wished nothing but good to ours was not legend, and once their true origins were learned they swiftly became allies and counsellors, helping to implement many basic and beneficial changes to the way we lived on Earth. They never stopped us warring, but the times of peace were longer, and life was better for many. Their appearance had rewritten many books; and now I knew the truth behind another myth.

It met all the requirements of a dragon; it was reptillian, it flew, and was enormous. Fire belched lazily from it's mouth as it arced through the air, rolling and swooping in tight circles. The other thing that became apparent was that this amazing beast, that warmed our flesh and dropped our jaws, was someone's pet.

The figure stood less than a hundred metres from where we lay; my eyes detected it was female before the scope confirmed it. She moved with a swiftness I at first could not comprehend, until the glint of fire upon her limbs revealed she was at least partly robotic. With a shock of deep red hair hanging to the backs of her knees, and wearing sparse, clinging armour that made me feel something I hadn't felt in years, she appeared to command the dragon's every move. I was at a loss. Revealing ourselves might have been the last thing we did. It was a weight off my mind when she noticed us; the fact she chose to fly to us, as easily as a paper plane across a classroom, weighed it heavy all over again. There was no roar of a jet pack, no awkward rotors. She could fly. The dragon remained airborne behind her, it's massive wings beating it aloft and fanning dirt into our faces. What was she?

This question got answered over dinner. It wasn't the type of repast I was used to; most chefs use more than their breath to create a meal. I assumed our host was showing off, and marvelled at anyone who thought just owning a pet dragon was not quite enough. I liked her at once.
Her name was Miomi Bu Liba, and translated as "Mistress of a thousand wars". She was one of the Guthren people, a race not yet known to Earth as far as I could recall. She was definitely of human stock, and this was no great shock; of all the forms found to have conquered the fight for life, the human has shown itself in more galaxies than any other. What we had on Earth was a pretty good mean average of the different ones I'd seen or heard of; Miomi Bu was somewhat nearer the top. The Guthren had hit space with a vengeance, launcing to other worlds before we had even mastered the oceans of our own. They held five solar systems in an area of space called the Viewpoint, light years away from here. The Viewpoint we did know of; one of the brightest lights able to be seen from our station at the far orbit, it was the dream destination of many an Earth-bound reader; it was used in many science-fiction stories as "the new Mars" as soon as colonisation and progress made one a colony, and one an unknown catalyst for creative thought.
Miomi Bu told us all of this and more, as we sat under the unblinking sun, trying but failing to be unruffled by our most unusual acquaintances, one of whom was idly puffing blue smoke from her nostrils, and occasionally tipping her head back (for we had been informed the dragon was a "she") and sending a hawaiian mushroom cloud of orange flame into the air.

We learned the dragon was in fact a Keer Wraith, and the mother, or queen, of it's flock. Miomi Bu had grown up on Keer, a planet where the Wraiths lived wild, and through the compassion of her race was able to live alongside them. That she took in an injured young was not unique among her people; what was remarkable was that the wounded chick would grow and grow, revealing itself as a breeding queen, the strongest and mightiest Wraith seen on Keer since records started. The Wraith Queen became a talking point and soon an unwittling tourist attraction; even those considered "distinguished" were seen jumping on the Keer shuttle from each of the Guthren worlds, gawping at the flinching reptile in it's pen. Miomi Bu was in no way poor, and finding a more suitable home for the brood she knew would come became a very possible cause to follow. She had bought ship and crew and set off to find a safe deserted planet, where her "mare" (and one of the studs she also carried) could spawn the hundred or so tough leather pouches that would complete the incubation of the flock, deep under the surface of a cool-water lake. She told us that they had found no such lake on Zebu; what we had interrupted had been a recreational time-out from a long journey.
Of the melted gun emplacements, we were told of an early encounter the Queen had with some rebel militia in Keer's main city; ever since, all that suggested the noise and pain she remembered, including long deserted gun turrets, were more than likely to recieve a contemptuous, cleansing flame. We shuddered as we were told how close we had come to being that night's meal; had the Wraith seen us before Miomi Bu did, there wouldn't have been much she could have done. We had all carried guns to the ridge, and would have fried for it.

We spent a day in each other's company; I found her to be witty, sincere and appealingly surreal, not to mention beautiful. The parts of her that were no longer flesh and blood were common "modifications" for their race to have; to a Guthren, bionically assisted arms and legs were regarded as lightly as braces for teeth, or lenses for seeing. To their surgeon's credit, nothing about the new limbs seemed to put me off, or ruin what I saw; she was more than perfect. As the time with her drew to an end I was thankful for one thing; the door had been shut on the past. Now I had felt for another, I could finally say goodbye, and what a feeling it was. My thoughts went to the girl I'd left behind, without the static of resentment that encumbered them before. I wished her well.

Miomi Bu and her dragon were drawn up to their ship after breakfast. They were to travel on, mindful of our advice to stay from Earth's direction. If it was tourism she feared, she would do well landing elsewhere. With a mixed bill of emotions performing in my head and stomach, I bade her farewell.
She had done something good, it was true; she'd helped me forget. Could I now forget her? Time would tell.
What didn't help me forget her in the slightest was the lake we found a day's march later, in a bright green valley above the tree-line.

The water was cool.

Deeper and Deeper

We assumed the claim that no suitable "nest" had been found had been a lie to protect the eggs, or pouches, that must lay under the blue waters of the lake we found. The lake was the result of a great geological upheaval which had created a deep rift, near enough to a winding river to become a steep-shored lake of fathomless content. The water was pure and clear, but the sides ran down sharply and swiftly from sight, leaving the distance to the bottom a matter for guesswork or exploration. It was Elloran, faultless it seemed in either will or ability, who volunteered, or rather insisted, that he would be the one to venture into the cold lake waters and take a look around.

Again Elloran surprised and impressed me. While the rest of the crew discussed the matter or rigging up some sort of air-supply hose to enable Elloran to get further down, he just got on with the job in hand. Clad in only his flight shorts and belt, into which he slid a bayonet and scabbard, he took a few seconds balancing his breathing and dived in. I was happy to have a long-held belief confirmed; that those, who like Elloran had experience of free-diving, took a normal breath before committing, rather than a large breath; the reckoning was that a larger breath was unnatural, harder to hold in, made you more inclined to float and offered very little more oxygen than a normal healthy inhalation. Elloran had learned his skill in the waters and fjords of Norway, a temperate place since before our births, yet a land of ice and snow for so many years before the turn-around. Nothing was set in stone. If someone had told me twenty years before this day that I would be waiting for a crewmate to discover dragon's eggs in an alien lake I would have laughed. As it was, I laughed now.

Elloran kept pushing ever deeper, testing his lungs against the pressure of the deep. Others in the party gave some attempt to match his efforts, but his experience in such matters, combined with his considerable advantage where physical strength was concerned, saw him as the only one anyone waited for; the others merely struggled down to half of his depth and found themselves crushed at the temples and having to return.

It was after an hour had passed, and more than twenty dives, that Elloran returned to the surface beaming. He swam with one swooping arm back to the steep shore, arcing it out of the water and clawing at the water ahead of him. As he scrambled onto the bank we saw what held the other hand under the surface; he had retrieved a Keer Wraith egg-pouch. The men gathered in a circle to inspect the find. It was a rough square, with tails on the corners and measured the length of a man along each side. The pouch was made of a thick, rubbery leather, which was a deep red so akin to a glowing coal it was hard to accept it did not give off heat. So it was true what we had thought; the Wraith had indeed spawned in the lake, and we, along with the memorable Miomi Bu Libu, were the only ones in possession of that fact.

There was only one decision to make. Ignoring Elloran's earnest suggestions for a cool-water pen and incubation facility across the ocean, I ordered the return of the pouch to the depths. The men grumbled before complying, and I could not blame them; having seen the spectacular nature of these creatures it was natural to want to take charge of one as Miomi Bu had, but without at least similar armour to the clinging, nigh-invulnerable suit she wore in the full face of the flames, I foresaw a dangerous pet indeed. The pouch sank smoothly to where it came from and we left.

Further coastal exploration found varied and interesting terrain, and while no new species of animal were encountered, we saw more and more evidence of previous civilisation, which we assumed (correctly, it would turn out) to be the historical sites of the Thorifoids. Statues of indefinable gods and idols leant heavily on their wasting foundations, returning themselves to the land. Here and there we saw traces of paved roads, long-abandoned and overgrown, and the low walls and ancient gardens that hinted to dwellings of the past.

We spent these days lazily; the interruption to our lives that would surely come was still some years away, and we were determined to enjoy every minute until the time came to run. It was with smiles on every face that we made each camp, and with honest wonder we took in the marvels of the alien world we trod upon. It was with such euphoric distraction we woke one morning to find the guards gone, and a blinding energy bolt exploding with fierce precision in between each of our bleary eyes. The black that followed was a time of genuine fear; we could all hear the shreikings and gabbled speech of our captors, but our eyes saw nothing and our muscles could not move. We felt the air on our skin and knew we were moving, carried from where we were stunned. Nothing I had come across in my years in space had prepared me for such an ambush, and I was able to do nothing but leave it to hope.
Optimism is one thing, but to expect nothing is to allow anything to be a bonus, if all goes well. I reasoned that those who don't kill you straight away shouldn't kill you eventually; unless of course they lived by alien concepts that saw kidnap, torture, death or even cannabalism as normal. Cursing my own imagination, I waited and listened.

It didn't sound good.

Morning Gory

We awoke to find our captors had been the Thorifoids. We lay bound and gagged in their camp, on the muddy floor of a building of stone construction. Light shone in from openings near the low ceiling, and movement outside threw shadows around like strobes. The Thorifoid that woke me was not like those I had seen in pictures, an altogether less elegant creature than I had in my mind. He was forthcoming with hospitality and conversation; without explanation for the abruptness of our capture, we were being treated most civilly. We were helped to our feet and led from the room; it was explained to us that the darkened room was deemed the best place to recover, as our eyes would be more sensitive to light from the effect of the stun bolt. I saw it prudent, given the sheer weight of numbers (we were thirteen men, while hundreds, if not thousands of these psychotropically-equipped hulks milled around us), to stall any mention of being aggreived over our kidnapping.

The sun was bright, and we blinked and rubbed our eyes all the way through the settlement, where we were taken to a large wooden structure, one end of which was a capacious awning of hide. Inside was the familiar layout of a tribal eating-house, with tables set out for recieving a speech as well as dining.

We were to learn over a sumptuous breakfast that several castes exist of these creatures, and the Thorifoids rule them. There are Thorafoids, Thorio's and others, including the Deities that they speak of in hushed, reverent tones. These Deities dwell on a chain of islands somewhere out in the mighty ocean, the herders for a mythically huge beast that grazes there.

We were soon asked how much we knew of the Keer Wraiths, and their "brood mother" Miomi Bu. Feeling the shiver of telepathy I told the truth; she had met us, fed us and left nothing but her mark. It was at this point, faced with the inquisitive gaze and searching minds of the Thorifoid High Counsel, that I found something out, something that made me happy. The problem was not letting it make me too happy.

I'd best explain; during my time in the employ of Earth's authorities, we were given free courses, to gain extra skills pertinent to the work we were doing. I avoided them all. I had been posted out pretty far, a system called Scaglarana, a place the locals, all migrant earth miners, called "the baseball park". It was true the four planets made a half-decent diamond, with the small, magenta sun where the pitching mound should be, (for most of their orbits), and strangely enough, the shuttle that carried workers from one planet to the next did tend to go in one direction. The planets were named after the bases and pilots called a passenger-free circuit a "home run" for two reasons, the other being it meant they could get home earlier.

It was a couple of weeks into routine patrols, flying at ground level on Third Base, when we started getting rained on, tiny meteorites with hardly the weight to beat gravity. This would have just been a line in the day's report had it not been the start of a terrible few weeks. Psychopod spores had come with the meteorites, and soon set about the miners and their administrators. With the population becoming rapidly and successively delirious, hysterical, comatose then dead, our High Command saw fit to send in the "Heads", or as they called themselves, the PsyLaw.
Then came four days of selective testing to find which of us in the corps might have latent mind skills, to be be honed and utilised against the Psychopods. I knew I'd had signs of "the gift" as my mother had called it, as my father did, and his father before. I'd played it down, not wanting the labels and fear that abnormal mental abilities could bring. And so I resisted during the test, doing my best to clear my mind of any trace of what it could do.
The PsyLaw Major who tested me was not so easily fooled. In fact, he congratulated me on a fine job; in all his time as an evaluator for the PsyLaw Forces, he'd never seen anyone totally clear his mind before. It was clear to an almost unperceptible degree, he said. In fact, far more clear than any mind, to the extent that he found himself going for my pulse after reading the intial scans. He explained that someone who had no mind-skills at all would still have a busy and working mind, and that my display of complete mental shut-down was better evidence of high mind-skills than a tattoo saying "Got Brains?". I was put in the front line against the spores, which meant locking minds with enraged and mindless Miners as they tried to kill me, escape me or breed with me. I faced more action there than any other post, and afterwards I began to work on my mind-skills whenever possible. I wanted to be able to fool the PsyLaw; next time they came a-testing, I'd be running through an exact replica of a massively average day.

Back to where we are the co-erced guests of the Thorifoids, and the reason for being happy; I had realised I had got through the tight questioning without my revealing our discovery of the wraith's egg pouches in the lake. I had concealed my memory of it, my worry of them asking about it, and then my glee at them not getting the facts from my mind. I knew these to be powerful users of mind-skills, and felt now I was ready to face PsyLaw's finest.

It seemed obvious what was going on; the Thorifoids were keepers of beasts by nature, and so some agreement existed between them and Miomi Bu to guard the Wraiths through the hatchings. Our capture had been the guards doing their job.

We talked for two hours or more; once the business of the Wraith eggs had been crested, we found them keen to learn about our history and culture. I was quick to point out that we were refugees from that culture, but this mattered little to them. They were impressed by the fact that we had conquered other worlds, and so many; indeed, this news startled some of their number who feared for the land they reigned. I noticed at this point that the most elderly of them, a shamanic High Priest of incredible stature and power, soon calmed the doubters, without the use of words. The eyes looked across, then they were quiet. It seemed whatever their fears for the future, this old boy had it sewed up. He didn't fear anything. What did he know?
It left me somehow reassured; my crew and I didn't want the Earth to find us, and here was a creature at least five hundred years old, with experience and wisdom we couldn't imagine, saying that the forces of Earth would not present a problem. I didn't think at the time what being five hundred years old might do to a mind; especially five hundred years during which the shaman had seen over sixty invasions, eleven plagues and an earthquake and his entire race almost wiped out four times. He hadn't been killed by any of it. By whatever reason, he was the luckiest Thorifoid alive, and hardly the best man to do a risk assessment.

The mood changed in the hall as those who were standing seated themselves, and a hush descended. A Thorafoid bearer came into the hall and started presenting each of my crew with a huge, crooked blade; as my skills were still hot from the interrogation I instantly read the minds of Elloran and Porter, who both feared we were wbout to take part in some sort of combat-based initiation. My own fears were dealt a curve-ball by the reading of the Thorifoid collective mind; all I got was "Dinner".

Then it was clear; from the back of the hide awning, curtains were pulled aside to allow the entrance of a large, low trolley, upon which was a perfectly cooked and dressed Armax Bull, of a size we assumed (for we had not seen these beasts reach such a size on the Molisk's continent) to be that of an Old Alpha or more. I had had many meals presented to me in the past, but never one so large. Nearly five metres long and two high, the method of serving soon became apparent; one used the knife provided, to hack off a lump as the trolley passed your table. Elloran managed to grab a leg, but relinquished some to his neighbours, not all of which were human, and of these there were some who seemed as keen for one of his own.

Nonetheless, the Thorifoids proved fine, if unsettling hosts; we aimed to leave the next day and with their blessing, survey the lands to the far south-east. They find this area not to their taste; it seems large insects present a considerable airborne menace in places. For these we had armour, ammunition, and a shared feeling that we hadn't had a good scrap in a while.
Bring them on.

Buzzed

It was several days march until we reached the end of the lands managed by the Thorifoids. Our blue-skinned guides left us with much shaking of their heads and hand gestures we could not mistake; they thought we were crazy. I told Elloran, Volksen and Ratman that it couldn't be any more dangerous than what we'd already encountered.
"Screamchasers and a dragon so far, remember?" said Elloran and I had to wince in agreement.
"And the women-things at the Thori camp were crying for us as we left," added Volksen.
"They knew they weren't getting any, that's why," snorted Ratman, shouldering his gun and taking point. We all shared a thought of amorous Thora's (as we called them) and followed. I think Volksen was sick in his mouth.

The ground beneath our feet was carpeted in a rich layer of amber grass, with low shrubs and trees dotted around almost artfully. The scenery, always different here it seemed, no matter where you walked, was getting more hilly. The horizon we left behind dipped in and out of view until gone, replaced by rounded peaks and exposed boulders. We marched well in the cool breeze that came with the sun, and made camp late in the day.

Waking early and eating a solid breakfast, we set out again. We had been warned that the Kingfishers lived in this area, and started to keep a close watch on the skies. Any noise from regular insects was enough to snap the necks of the men hearing it as they urgently sought it's source. We found them that evening. We were heading up a low-sided valley with a view to camping at the escarpement that sat at it's peak like a natural outpost. We halted on the way and took routine scans of what lay ahead; a good camp was often not solely your discovery. On the screen we saw them, highlighted by their body heat, hanging in the air above the rocks. Turning to look with the naked eye, we shuddered with relief as we realised how close we had come to walking right under them, straight into diving range of their lethal barbs.
To assess the danger, it was decided that I would take Elloran's long-range rifle and tag one towards the guns of the rest. As I crouched in position and took aim, I prayed the rest of them wouldn't follow their wounded brother. I hoped the tag would kill it outright. This was not to be the case.
Elloran's rifle was a Marber Alpha, but one he had modified himself. It featured a screen much like the scanners, giving life-signs of whatever it was pointed at. I squeezed the trigger and the gun whooshed as it sent off a package of cells towards the insect at huge speeds. The bar that indicated the creature's health dipped a fraction as the buzzing and angered bug streaked toward us, thankfully alone. All the men there took out fast-firing pistols and in a few short seconds, the large intruder lay dead. No-one had sustained any injury, although the talk was immediately concerned with the speed it had showed.
"One at a time then?" offered Volksen, He was not challenged.

And so began a long night on Amethera. Elloran and myself would take turns creeping around in the dark, locating the Kingfishers, then tagging them back to the guns of the others. Once or twice a pair were roused, and one time three came at once, spilling some of our blood before panic saw them killed. None were encountered on the ground, however, making our job much simpler. Only a clear view of the sky was needed, and the sky was the worst cover of all. As you might remember, I'm a fighter pilot on my better days. Airborne menaces are my area.

By the time morning came we stood atop a pile of steaming, broken bodies. We had lost two men, Kando and Bargerra. They lay under blankets awaiting their burial. Their deaths had come hours before, when a Kingfisher drifted around Elloran and myself and landed among the men unnannounced. Bargerra's body had as many bullet-holes as bites, him being the last victim and unsaveable in the men's eyes. Of the insect that attacked him, nothing was left except a blood slick on the ground. I had called for them to stop firing many times before they'd either obeyed me, or ran out of ammunition in their guns.

Daylight brought relief with it; checks by Elloran and a reluctant Volksen revealed we had eradicated all Kingfisher presence in the area of the camp. With the sun starting to warm our skin, and our lost comrades buried well, we lay back on our packs and closed our eyes, beginning a simple and peaceful contest to see who could put the buzzing noise out of their head long enough to succumb to a well-earned sleep.

We awoke to find Volksen gone.

........................................